College Locked Down For Hours Wednesday As Police Searched Campus; Officer Injured By Accidental Weapon Discharge

MANCHESTER — State police detectives returned to Manchester Community College on Thursday to interview students as part of their investigation into Wednesday's report of an armed man at the school.

The school was locked down for hours Wednesday afternoon after a student reported seeing a man with a gun in a hallway.

Students and faculty were ordered to say inside buildings for hours as officers searched room by room.

No gunman was found, and the lockdown that began around 2 p.m. was called off shortly after 7:30 p.m.

State police Lt. J. Paul Vance said major crime squad detectives have interviewed the woman who called police about the man with a gun, obtained a description of the man from her and will continue following up on campus.

She told police she saw a man with what she thought was a handgun protruding from his waistband. She described the man as a heavy-set Hispanic man, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, wearing a red short-sleeved shirt.

On Wednesday, Vance said police were not able to find anyone else who saw a man matching that description.

A Manchester officer who was hurt during the search was shot in the foot when another officer's firearm accidentally discharged, town police spokesman Capt. Christopher Davis said Thursday.

The officer, a seven-year veteran of the Manchester department whom Davis would not name, was being treated Thursday at Hartford Hospital. State police said Wednesday night that the officer's own weapon had accidentally discharged. That was incorrect, Davis said. State police are investigating the accidental shooting.

Although a suspect was not found, Davis said the heavy response and methodical search was warranted.

"It's not something you want to second-guess afterward," he said.

Reich Cuizon, an MCC student from South Windsor, said he was in class when the alert came over the intercom. He and his classmates, about 35 students, crowded into a small room that could be locked, but Cuizon said he ventured into the hallway to see what was going on. Police in tactical gear stopped him, searched him and told him to leave the building, Cuizon said.

A statement from Manchester Community College President Gena Glickman said word of the lockdown was immediately sent out via an emergency notice on the MCC website, through the media, social media, and text messages to faculty, staff, students and others. She said the college had practiced the "shelter in place" protocol as recently as Feb. 20.